Two Aliens
by Alix Cohen
Summary: Episode one. In early 2012, the Doctor takes on a Companion who's more like him than he's really ready for.
1. Chapter 1

The autumn sun was just setting over Bloomington as Lindsay Adams left the bookstore where she worked and headed for home. It wasn't a bad job, normally; what could be better than spending one's day in a room full of books? But to be honest, it had been a bad day; she'd been reprimanded again for reading when she was supposed to be working. One more time, her usually-kindly boss had told her, and she'd be fired.

It didn't matter, she told herself. She didn't need the money, she was only a month away from getting accepted at Harvard, and then she'd be in a place where people wanted her around.  
At least that's what she told herself. And Lindsay Adams was very good at believing her own lies. It was what kept her sane, in a world where no one understood her.

As she crossed the street she saw something blue out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look, and it was gone. She shook her head, decided she'd imagined it, like she did so many hopeful things, and kept walking.

There it was again. And this time, when she turned her head, it stayed—a blue box, taller than a person, sitting nonchalantly-could a box be nonchalant?—in the parking lot of the cafe next to the bookstore.

It was dark blue and rectangular, with a yellow light on top. Could it be—maybe! She headed back cautiously towards the box, and stopped about arm's length from it. The writing on the sides was right...She reached out and touched it, to make sure it wouldn't disappear. It stayed, and felt exactly like she'd always imagined it would. She took a step closer and knocked on the door.

After about half a minute, the door was opened by a tall skinny man with messy brown hair. He wore dark pants, a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, and a blue bow tie.

"Hello?" he said, looking around. Then he spotted Lindsay. "Hallo, and who are you?"

"Lindsay Adams," Lindsay said. "Are you the Doctor?"

* * *

The Doctor was dumbfounded. Here he was, first time back on Earth since Christmas, and someone had gotten through the TARDIS's perception filter. Not only that, but she knew who he was. Who was she? He'd certainly never met her before. Nor did she seem to belong to any of the secret societies he'd encountered. She was American, though; so that didn't necessarily mean anything.

Meanwhile, Lindsay's mind was racing. _I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't assume he's really the Doctor..._ "Probably just an actor," she muttered, then froze, realizing she'd said it aloud.  
The silence that followed was awkward. _Make small talk,_ part of Lindsay's brain suggested. She dithered another while, then spoke. "So...they're starting the show again?"

The expression on his face as he responded was not at all what she'd predicted. He looked puzzled. "Show? What d'you mean, 'show'?"

"I mean _Doctor Who,_" Lindsay said, as if it were obvious. (Well, it was to _her._) "You're playing the Doctor, right?"

...

It finally clicked in the Doctor's head. "_Doctor Who_? The programme?" The girl nodded. "You really think I'm an actor on a television programme?"

"Well, what else could you be?" Lindsay blurted. "The Doctor doesn't exist..." Silence fell again, as the Doctor tried to decide whether or not to feel insulted. Then he felt something at the back of his brain. The girl was broadcasting a thought, and he picked it up. It was the same wish nearly all of them had had...and he owed it to Amy, if not to all of them, to keep granting it.

"...does he?" Lindsay wondered. She looked up at the Doctor, who smiled.

"Want to see the inside of the TARDIS?"

Lindsay brightened despite herself as the Doctor opened the door of the box he'd appeared from. She took a deep breath and warned herself not to get her hopes up. Then she followed him inside.

* * *

The control room was darker and more spacious than she'd ever seen it on the show. Gone were the gleaming white walls with their honeycomb pattern, the polished console, the sliding doors. This room looked like a cave full of old junk, the rotor a pillar that touched the ceiling, everything bronze and teal and not at all like she'd expected.

"It's different," was her first reaction.

The Doctor was disappointed. "Don't you mean it's big—"

"Of course it's bigger on the inside," Lindsay interrupted. "It's always been bigger on the inside; it's dimensionally transcendent. But it's never looked like _this_. What did you do to it?"

"I _rebuilt_ it," the Doctor retorted, "when I regenerated last. Well, I helped it rebuild itself, well, actually, _she_ did most of the work, and I—what're you doing?" Lindsay was edging toward the console. Her expression had changed; was that awe? Hmm. Haven't seen awe in a while. Annoyance, yes; adoration; couple of other emotions starting with A, but not...

"It's real," Lindsay breathed. She realized she didn't care that it was different, or that the Doctor was different. "It's the TARDIS, and you're the Doctor, and—"

Lights started blinking on the console. The time rotor began spinning, and the shaking that shoved Lindsay against the console was accompanied by her favorite sound in all the universe. They were taking off.

But her joy was short-lived. "What did you do?" the Doctor demanded from across the console, where he seemed to be hanging on for dear life.

"Nothing!" Lindsay shouted, trying desperately not to press any buttons. "I didn't touch it! It just—"

The Doctor finished her sentence. "Started on its own?" Lindsay nodded. "She does do that sometimes. Not your fault-well, maybe it is your fault, she likes to show off—but nothing to worry about! Nothing to worry about." Lindsay nodded again.

The Doctor let go of the console, and began running around it, flipping switches and pushing buttons. Lindsay backed away and fell into a chair. Even there, she felt like she was in the way.  
Soon the rotor slowed, the floor stopped shaking, and the TARDIS made its noise again. "Here we are!" the Doctor announced.

"Where?" Lindsay asked uncertainly. This was starting to be too much. Even if it _was_ the real Doctor, and the real TARDIS.

"Not a clue," the Doctor said cheerfully. "Care to do the honors?" He gestured toward the door.  
"Um...don't we check the scanner first?" Lindsay glanced around for something that looked like a screen. There, in the far wall.

"What's the fun of that? Come on..." The Doctor grinned.

Lindsay got up, glanced from the door to the Doctor and back, then tiptoed to the door and opened it.

And yelped, and closed it again immediately.


	2. Chapter 2

"What is it?" asked the Doctor, concerned. She was timid? Well, other Companions had been reluctant...he couldn't think of any at the moment, but there had to be some.

Lindsay blinked. "Rhinoceros?" she said unsteadily.

"Rhinocer..." the Doctor repeated. "Oh, a Judoon!"

"A what?"

"A Judoon." He grinned again, hoping she would smile too. She did, faintly. "It's time you saw the universe, Lindsay. Let's go talk to the law." He opened the door and strode out, and she followed.  
There was indeed a Judoon waiting for them outside. Seeing the Doctor, it barked at him. The TARDIS translated: "Doctor. You are here."

"Yes, I'm here, of course I'm here," the Doctor replied. "Why, should I be somewhere else? I can do that, if you like—"

The Judoon cut him off. "No need. We appreciate your support. Follow." It turned and started to walk away. The Doctor motioned Lindsay to follow.

"What is it, and why are we following it?" Lindsay asked as they were hurried through a series of round hallways in what looked like a deserted space station.

"Judoon. They're the law in this part of the galaxy. Interstellar police. This one's awfully friendly." Lindsay pondered that for a moment, slowing down as she did so. The Doctor was three steps ahead before he noticed. "But what do they want...come on, we mustn't be late!"

* * *

The Judoon led them into a round conference room. Tables around the edges surrounded a dais, and seated along one edge were half a dozen more Judoon. One in the middle rose. "Thank you for coming, Doctor," it said. "We appreciate your support of our cause."  
"You're welcome," the Doctor replied flippantly. Lindsay, trying to look everywhere at once, caught the Judoon on the end of the table (their guide had sat down at the other end) staring at her. She stared back. "Now, what's this cause I'm supporting?" asked the Doctor, not missing a beat.

The Judoon speaker opened its mouth, but was interrupted as something in the dais crackled. Lindsay and the Doctor turned as a giant eyeball was projected in the air in the middle of the room.

Lindsay gasped and took a step back. Appropriate, she decided after the fact, because despite the fact that the Doctor was there, and despite the fact that the giant eye was only a hologram, he was still a strange Doctor, and it was still an eyeball the height of the TARDIS. What could have an eye that big?

"Message begins," said a metallic-sounding voice in the hologram's projector. "Judoon High Board: Your latest insult will not be suffered gladly. Conflict is imminent. If the Doctor does not appear within the next sixty-four standard hours, there will be no prior arbitration. Repeat, report the Doctor's location to us within sixty-four standard hours. Message ends." The hologram disappeared all at once.

Immediately a whispered conversation began between the three Judoon at the center of the table. Lindsay looked up at the Doctor, who shrugged.

"Doctor," one of the Judoon barked.

"That's me," the Doctor replied. The Judoon motioned for him to step up to the table, which he did. Lindsay started to follow, but was stopped by the Judoon speaker. "Not the human."

Lindsay was left standing near the dais while the Doctor and the Judoon leaders talked. On an impulse, she dug in her pockets and found her phone, which of course had no signal (she wondered if the Doctor's companions ever had cell phones), and a cat's cradle string. She put the phone away and began winding the string carefully around her fingers, avoiding the stares of the Judoon who weren't part of the discussion. After a while she found a shape she liked, something like the invisible ship from "Shada" if you turned it the right way. But she had no one to show. She tried making it backwards, to figure out how she'd done it, and ended up with a tangle.

She heard someone say her name, and looked up. The Doctor was back. "Come on," he said, "they're going to find us somewhere to rest."

* * *

"So, what's going on?" Lindsay asked as they were led through yet more white corridors.

"Well, I don't pretend to be an expert, but it seems to me the Judoon are at war with the Atraxi. Or almost at war, which in that case is a totally different story."

"Atraxi? What're they?"

"You saw one."

"I saw its eyeball."

"That's the whole thing; an entire individual is just a giant eyeball." Lindsay's mouth hung open.

The Judoon (Lindsay thought it was their guide from before) showed them into a white room that was empty enough to be a prison cell. (The Doctor thought it probably _was_ a cell at some point. The whole station smelled like there had been thousands of beings here once, and while the interstellar police forces were (generally) humane, he could tell that some had been prisoners.)

After the Judoon left, the Doctor continued his explanation. "So the Judoon and the Atraxi are intergalactic police forces. They're not usually rivals; in fact, normally they operate under completely different circumstances. So when Prisoner Zero escaped-you remember the Prisoner Zero thing, a couple of years ago your time?"

Lindsay nodded. She remembered clocks and computers going crazy, a message being repeated on radios and televisions, flying saucers that seemed to be watching people from the sky. She also remembered the broadcast that followed, saying it was a science-fiction scare like _War of the Worlds_, and wondering if the Doctor would've caught Prisoner Zero, had they been real.

Had they been real. "That really happened?"

"Of course it happened! Anyway, we are right now a month or two after that happened, and the Judoon have accused the Atraxi of breaking their jurisdiction rules. Of course, the Atraxi said they hadn't done anything wrong, because they were recovering a prisoner of _theirs_ that had escaped, not the Judoon's. The Judoon High Board-that's the crash we've been talking to-cited chapter and verse of the Shadow Proclamation treaty, and it fell apart from there. Now they're on the brink of war, and they want _me_ to decide who's right. But there's a problem." He stopped.

"What problem?" Lindsay asked.

The Doctor, who had wanted her to ask this, went on. "The Judoon High Board think I know about this already. They think I've come here, to their command base, because I've heard all about this conflict and have decided to take their side."

"And have you?"

"No, of course not! One thing I never do is cooperate with the police," the Doctor declared.

Lindsay thought of something, and said it. "What about UNIT?"

"Not a police force; and besides, they actually protect Earth. Everyone else is useless. The Judoon, the Atraxi, Torchwood..."

"What's Torchwood?" Lindsay hadn't heard the name.

"Never mind that now. Be quiet and let me think." The Doctor began pacing the length of the cell.

Lindsay, feeling miffed, sat down on the bed and began playing cat's cradle again. After trying for several minutes to recreate the "Shada" ship pattern, she realized she had successfully distracted herself from her confusion, and from the fact that she was light-years away from home with a character from a TV show. Then she became worried again.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the conference room, the Judoon High Board recorded a message for the Atraxi, to the effect that the Doctor had arrived and was supportive of the Judoon's jurisdiction rights. They then spent the next several hours planning for contingencies. They knew they were right, of course; but the Doctor could be bluffing, as he often did.

At last the Atraxi replied, just after an orderly had been sent to feed the Doctor and his companion. "For the Doctor to decide the case without hearing the truth is unwise of him," the Atraxi Speaker said. "Therefore, the arbitration will take place. A representative of the Atraxi will request orbital permission twelve standard hours from your receipt of this message, and the arbitration will take place immediately afterward."

The Judoon High Board agreed. After all, they knew the decision would be in their favor.

* * *

**A/N:** In Lindsay's world, "Shada" was actually completed and aired, as was everything through "Survival"; and the events of all of Doctor Who through 2011 plus the first two seasons of Torchwood happened, though the cracks in time have erased a lot of it. (Hmm…perhaps that's what happened to some of the First and Second Doctors' episodes.)

Also, if the Judoon and Atraxi are using lightspeed communication, they are about the same distance from each other as Earth is from the asteroid belt. Just in case you were wondering.


	3. Chapter 3

Lindsay was awakened by shouting. For a moment, she didn't recognize the spare white room, or the tall thin man who was doing the shouting. Then she remembered: she'd gotten tired of having things to say that the Doctor wouldn't listen to, and of making little notes to herself on her phone, so she'd taken a nap.

And now the Doctor felt the need to tell her something. "Lindsay! Wake up! I've got it!"

"Got what?" she asked, a little irritated.

I don't have to support either of them!" he said.

Lindsay thought about that for a moment. "I think that's obvious," she replied. The Doctor deflated. "The question is, how do you do that?"

He brightened. "Don't worry, I've got a plan!"

"What is it?" What Lindsay knew of the Doctor made her suspicious. The plan was either something brilliant that he'd been working on ever since they'd landed (or maybe even before), or not a plan at all.

"We don't take sides," the Doctor announced. Lindsay shook her head, suspicions confirmed.

The Doctor noticed. "It's better than that," he said. "I am the official arbiter of this dispute. If I can convince them that they're both wrong-which is true, by the way-I can keep them from fighting!"

"You can do that?"

"Of course. Shadow Proclamation convention 15C says the arbiter's word is final. The problem is—"

The door slid open, and a Judoon appeared. "It is time for the arbitration. You will come now and make your decision. Follow." It turned to leave, and the Doctor and Lindsay followed. They were led back to the conference room, where the Judoon High Board and a holographic Atraxi awaited them. Introductions were made, the Doctor and Lindsay were seated facing the aliens, and the arbitration began.

It was boring, and Lindsay got the sense that both sides were exaggerating. The Judoon put a lot of emphasis on the borders the Atraxi had supposedly violated; the Atraxi accused the Judoon of obstructing justice; it sounded a lot like American politics. She began playing with her string again, and in the middle of the Judoon's speech, asked the Doctor what the problem was with his plan.

"See, the problem is," the Doctor whispered back, "that if this works, and we get out of here, both sides are going to hate me forever. Now, that's better than one side loving us and one side hating us, and it's already happened in my timeline, but we're going to have to run for it. When I say run, be ready to run."

Lindsay nodded. She had seen this before. Second Doctor. She wondered which life this Doctor was on.

* * *

At last the speeches ended, and the Doctor was asked to make his decision. He stood, and gestured under the table at Lindsay. She guessed it meant _move_, and slid into the next chair closer to the door.

"Judoon High Board, Atraxi Council, thank you for your time and I have reached a decision," the Doctor said quickly. More deliberately, he continued, "I have decided that both of your arguments are complete rubbish."

The expected stunned silence fell. He plowed through it. "Judoon: Prisoner Zero escaped from Atraxi custody; therefore, it was the Atraxi's job to recapture him. If you were really worried about jurisdiction, you could've found him yourself and extradited him to the Atraxi sometime in the twelve Earth years between his escape and his recapture.

"Atraxi: You _did_ enter the Judoon jurisdiction to recover Prisoner Zero. Whether that was right is not my concern. What _is_ my concern is that you threatened to destroy the Earth in order to find one missing prisoner. I've already told you how careless that is."

The Judoon and the Atraxi were getting over their shock. Lindsay shifted down one more seat and sat on its edge.

"In conclusion," the Doctor said, "neither of you are justified in attacking the other, your claims are rubbish-" (he said the next part directly to Lindsay)"-and I recommend you RUN!" He bolted from the conference room, Lindsay right behind. They were halfway down the hall already when an alarm went off, loud enough that Lindsay had to slow down and put her fingers in her ears.

Reaching the corner, the Doctor looked back. "Don't stop, they're behind us!" Lindsay thought he shouted. It was too loud to tell, but she nodded and ran faster, careful to look only at the Doctor's shoes in front of her.

At last they reached the TARDIS. The Doctor snapped his fingers, and the door opened. They ran inside, Lindsay slamming it in the face of a couple of Judoon.

* * *

The Judoon were quite upset at not having been vindicated. So, it turned out, were the Atraxi. But now both were angry at the Doctor instead.

So when a Dalek and a Cyberman showed up at each base a few standard days later, accompanied by _something_ in a black suit, both the Judoon and the Atraxi were more than happy to join the alliance they proposed.

* * *

"Made it!" the Doctor announced, practically bouncing off the control-room walls.

Lindsay sank into a chair, panting. "That...was dangerous," she said.

"Yes, but wasn't it fun?"

Lindsay thought about that. "I guess it was," she said, having finally caught her breath. "I wish my brother could have seen it."

The Doctor paused. "You have a brother?" he echoed.

"Yeah...he's four years younger than me. Captain of his school soccer team, and he acts like he's better than everyone else. Maybe he wouldn't be such a pain if he knew there was something better."

"That's family for you," said the Doctor. "Can't live with 'em...can't live without 'em." He sounded sad now.

"Is something wrong?" Lindsay asked.

He sat down next to her. "Lindsay, a lot has happened since I was the Doctor you know from television. How many were there?"

"Seven," Lindsay replied. "And I'd been meaning to ask—"

"I'm the eleventh," the Doctor said morosely. "It's been three hundred years since...what I mean is..." He trailed off again.

"What is it?" Lindsay asked, then realized she was pushing it. "Sorry—"

"No, no, you have a right to know," the Doctor said. He took a deep breath. "They're all gone now, Lindsay. It's been so long since I had to think about it, and—they're all gone. I'm the last Time Lord left."

Silence. Lindsay weighed her options-at least, the ones she knew about-and decided that the best thing to do was give the Doctor a hug. She did so tentatively, and was surprised when he hugged her back. She was startled by his heartbeats, but decided it wasn't a bad sound.

"If it helps," she said softly, "I'm kind of alone too. I have Asperger Syndrome…it means I have trouble with emotions, with people, even my parents...so I'm sort of an alien too."

She thought she heard him chuckle.

She soon reached her contact limit and pulled away. He glanced at her with an expression she didn't recognize, then jumped up, himself again, and returned to the console.

"Right," he said. "Where do you want to go?"

Lindsay considered the question for a moment. "How about...Earth's future?"

"Right," said the Doctor again, and started pressing buttons. "Here we go!"

* * *

NEXT EPISODE: STEEL CITY DALEKS


End file.
